In one of the most storied palazzos in Rome, an inveterate traveler assembles a global array of cultural riches and flea-market finds to create a distinctly personal refuge

Living Room

Living Room

Rome is a city of palaces. The Italian prime minister governs from the Palazzo Chigi, the president from the Quirinale; the Senate meets in the Palazzo Madama, the Chamber of Deputies in the Montecitorio. The Trevi Fountain abuts the Palazzo Poli. And art lovers swarm to the enormous Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, which houses a famous gallery filled with glorious works by Caravaggio, Titian, Raphael, and Velázquez—most famously his circa-1650 portrait of the Pamphilj family's most intimidating member, Pope Innocent X.

The living room's pair of armchairs came from the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the red-leather chair is from the 1930s, and the sofa is covered with a Tunisian cotton blanket; the bookcase is custom made, and the antique rug is Iranian.

Living Room

Living Room

The Doria Pamphilj has an illustrious, if complicated, history. Begun in the early 1500s, it rose around a large colonnaded courtyard that was reputedly the work of Donato Bramante, the architect who provided the original designs for St. Peter's Basilica. Construction didn't really finish until late in the 19th century, and today the palace is mainly known as a Baroque monument containing not only the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, but also 250 private apartments, among them some of the city's most sumptuous interiors. Italian public relations guru Roberto Begnini occupies one such dwelling. For a culture maven like him, "a place that's so identified with the city," he says, is the ideal home. He calls it "molto, molto Roma—the maximum of Rome."

In the living room of Roberto Begnini's apartment in Rome's Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, the antique trunk and 1920s portraits are Chinese, the lithograph is by Miela Reina, and the watercolor is by Cristiano and Patrizio Alviti; the tiled flooring was installed in the 1930s.